


Don't Shy Away

by lookingforatardis



Category: Actor RPF, Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Middle School, Coming Out, Crushes, Fluff, M/M, Secret Crush, Soft Boys, based on a tweet, i guess??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 16:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforatardis/pseuds/lookingforatardis
Summary: Inspired by this tweet: "In 8th grade we had to turn in a weekly journal and the day after I turned in one about the kid I had a crush on in class my teacher redid the seating chart and put us next to each other"





	Don't Shy Away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [overflow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/overflow/gifts).

> Overflow and I send each other two things on instagram: kittens that remind us of Timmy/Elio, and fic prompts. This was born out of a convo with her. It's unedited, I just wrote it in one sitting lol
> 
> Lets just pretend kids these days get a whole week off of school for Thanksgiving. (do they?? I don't know. I'm assuming not because i didn't. But this is fiction.)

The bell rang, announcing the start of another school day. Seventh graders chattered excitedly in their final moments before attention would be pulled, some catching a few minutes of sleep with heads against desks. Luca glanced over the faces with a sigh before turning his attention to the door, checking his watch as he walks over to close it for the start of the day, smirking to himself as he’s pushed aside with the rushed entrance of none other than the one student he can’t seem to reach. "Mr. Hammer," he greets, closing the door as the students quiet.

"Guadagnino," he hears in response, a bit out of breath. Most days, he’d rush in at the sound of the bell, but the days where he was moments late were becoming more frequent. Luca worried about it, if only because it correlated with the recent drop in effort shown in homework and quizzes. Though, admittedly, as he begins class and notices the boy drumming his fingers against his desk in the third row, the worry may have more to do with the shift in mood he’s seen.

He gets the kids at a certain age, a vulnerable age where everything is a mountain to be moved. He sees the kids struggle, knows the exact day when everything crashes for them. Middle school isn’t easy for anyone, and he sees it daily. Always has. His instincts to guide the kids into smoother waters creates bonds with the so-called "trouble" students that years later send invites to graduations and weddings.

So it is perhaps the apathy that accompanies the late work and lack of participation that forces Luca to call his name after class. "Armie, stay for a moment?" The boy’s eyes widen as he watches his peers scatter, his eyes lingering long after the last boy exits, his own gaze flickering back momentarily.

"I’m sorry I was late again," he mumbles.

"That’s fine, Armie," Luca waves off with a hand, resting against his desk with the side of his hip. "Is everything alright? At home, in your other classes?" He watches as Armie goes on the defense, his stance shifting instinctively. Other students begin filing in for the next period, but ignore the conversation at the front. It puts Armie on guard though, and Luca can tell.

"I’m fine." This isn’t the first chat Luca’s had with him this semester, and none had gone particularly well. Armie didn’t like being questioned. Didn’t like people looking too closely. Luca saw, and he clearly didn’t like it.

"Okay, okay," Luca holds up his hands in an attempt to calm the waters. "I only ask because your work is not what it could be."

"I’m doing my best."

"No, I don’t think you are." For an uncomfortable moment, Armie stared at him in frustration. "Armie, listen to me," Luca sighed. "You are smart, I can tell. You have a gift with storytelling. But it is not always applied to your essays in this class."

"Maybe I don’t like your class," Armie mutters, shouldering his bag with a huff. Luca just smiles and waits until he meets his eyes.

"I’m willing to overlook some of your hesitation to participate in class, but you must begin applying yourself in the homework. I cannot make exceptions everywhere, Armie."

"What do you want, then?" Armie rolls his eyes._ Ah, the middle school attitude_, Luca thinks with something akin to fondness.

"Tonight’s journal," he begins, folding his hands, eyeing the growing audience in the classroom with an easy smile before turning back to Armie. "I need more effort."

"What does that _mean_?"

"It means I want to understand you," Luca sighs. "Apply yourself. Spend some time with it, don’t just write it on the bus to school."

"I don’t ride the bus."

"Armie." Luca huffs, knowing he would either break through with this kid or the kid would break him. "It’s a personal prompt. Don’t shy away from it. I’m the only one who will read it, and you ought to know by now that I won’t betray that trust." Armie nods after a moment and, knowing the bell would ring in just a minute or two, Luca releases him.

He can only hope it won’t be in vain.

After a rather enthusiastic argument with his father at dinner, Armie slumps against the side of his bed and pulls his backpack to his side by the strap. Dumping his notebooks onto the floor, the blue spiralbound for his English class seems to jump out to him, Mr. Guadagnino’s words in his ears. _Don’t shy away from it,_ he’d said. Armie shakes his head and turns to the page where he’d written down tonight’s prompt. Traces the letters of his own handwriting at the top. Closes the book and wanders to his window to open it up for some air, stares out at the sky. "Fucking idiot," he mutters. If only he tried a little more, he could have coasted in Guadagnino’s class. If only he showed up on time more often. If only he had taken a different elective, then maybe he wouldn’t have to be in this class for first period anyway. Granted, his other choice had been theater, which Guadagnino _also_ teaches. And _he_ also takes. So maybe nothing mattered anyway.

The prompt is tucked away in his notebook, but it floats around his mind nevertheless. _Write about a moment this semester that will have an impact on your future._ Fucking ridiculous, is what Armie thinks. How the hell are they supposed to know what matters to their future? They’re not even out of middle school. It’s a bullshit prompt, just like all the other prompts he’s had to suffer through in this class. It doesn’t even mean anything. He could write anything and it would _have_ to count, because who is Guadagnino to know the difference?

Why can’t he stop thinking about the one thing he wishes he could forget?

Why can’t he stop thinking about _writing_ about it? About _him_?

He groans and walks back to bed, grabs his notebook with a glare and sits down at his desk, opens the pages, and lets out a shaky breath. It would be fine, he tells himself. He didn’t have to turn it in. He could bullshit something else tomorrow before class if he needed to. Something about Guadagnino’s insistence with this prompt prevents him from forgetting it entirely, though. He was the only one who really cared one way or the other if Armie succeeded. Not even trying felt like a weight of disapproval all at once, and he’d been evading his teacher’s attention for long enough to know that his time had run out. He couldn’t keep running.

"So stupid," he whispers, hand shaking as he picks up his pen with a heavy sigh.

Then, he begins to write.

The first thing Luca notices is Armie walking in two minutes before the bell rings. He does a double take, looks at his watch, then up at Armie as he sits down, eyes glued to his desk. The second thing he notices is how quiet he is, completely ignoring Nick who Luca had, until this point, assumed was a close friend of his. Other students rush in before the bell rings and Luca is surprised to find that everyone is not only on-time, but with Armie’s unexpected arrival, _early_ even. He closes the door and begins class, asking journals to be passed forward. The third thing he notices that morning, is Armie passing a stack of stapled papers. Without adding his own.

Luca fights the slump of his shoulders and gathers himself as he realizes he may have pushed this kid too far without meaning to. He clearly had something going on in his life he didn’t want to talk about, and perhaps Luca hadn’t been as helpful as he’d hoped in bringing it out.

Class is slow. Armie is silent for the period, not even passing notes. Other students are enthusiastic about the topic, which pulls his focus. The two theater kids are particularly excited when someone brings up plays, and Luca feels a wave of fondness for the duo for bringing a sense of lightness to the class.

When he dismisses them, he watches as one by one they file out of the room, until it is only Armie who remains. Armie, holding a stapled set of papers with a vice grip. "Armie?"

"You’re the only one who reads them?" Startled, Luca nods. "Promise?"

"Armie, I promise you. Only I read the journals."

"And you won’t…" Armie looks to the side and for the first time since meeting him, Luca sees his façade slip and fracture before his eyes. A vulnerable, _terrified_ boy stands in front of him.

"Armie," Luca starts, voice soft. "I promise."

"Right, okay." Still, it takes another moment for Armie to gather himself and release the paper over to Luca. Even after he does, Luca watches a wave of anxiety pass over him. Suddenly, he worries he hasn’t worried _enough_ about this kid. What could cause this?

"If it’s too much—"

"No, read it," Armie nods, swallowing hard. With one last look at Luca, he scurries out of the classroom as if afraid to turn back.

Normally, Luca reads the journals in a stack after school with a glass of wine. He mostly grades effort anyway, whether or not the student tried to think creatively. Content never mattered, so he didn’t feel bad about a glass or two. Something told him this one would be different.

He lasts until lunch before curiosity gets the best of him.

He reads the first paragraph quickly before pausing, looking up at the desks in front of him, and realizing what it is he’s about to read. With a heavy sigh, he starts at the beginning again.

It’s hard to read at first. He can tell it wasn’t easy for Armie to write, words scribbled out harshly in the black ink in some places where he changed his mind. At first, no names are listed, but Luca suspects. Luca suspects, with his heart in his throat, what this journal is really about. _Who_ it is about. Why the anxiety was pouring out of Armie, why he refused to pass it forward in his row where someone might glance down and read it in passing.

It takes the entire first page for Armie to get his footing, by which point Luca feels like a child again, experiencing this for the first time. The wonder, the confusion, the nerves of acceptance that accompany any discovery of this kind.

With emotion he didn’t anticipate, he rereads the entire journal before moving on, fearing he isn’t quite absorbing it with the care he feels it deserves. He notices the nuance, the sentences that feel scripted, the ones that clearly weren’t thought about before being written. He remembers the moment Armie writes about, tries to remember every detail from his side of the story when, in the first week of school, a new student joined the class. They had to do a group assignment and Armie happened to be paired with him. Luca had heard stories about Armie from his teachers last year – potential but lacks the passion for schoolwork – and had already decided he’d turn this kid’s life around. A new student could be an instigator, something to shake things up in a student’s life at school. Clearly, he’d been right.

Just not in the ways he’d anticipated.

Armie’s writing is all over the place until he talks about him. Only in descriptions of him is Armie’s writing clear as ice, thoughts Luca is sure haven’t been spoken out loud to anyone laid bare for him to read. Thoughts that have clearly been dissected inside the kid’s mind over and over and over again to get such succinct and powerful descriptions.

Luca had noticed, in hindsight, that Armie always waited for Timmy to leave the classroom before gathering his own backpack and walking out. Hadn’t put together that Timmy started arriving to class later, and suddenly Armie never showed up on time either. In writing, he sees the confession that he’d been attempting to avoid him, limiting the opportunities Timmy had to start a conversation or friendship.

The moment, Armie says, was the night before their group project was due at the start of the semester. He’d been at the library with Timmy when he became overwhelmed, Timmy’s laughter sparking something he didn’t understand in his chest. He talks about the anxiety he began feeling, along with pains that only in context clues can Luca decipher as longing. He talks about Timmy without naming him, without even naming the class that the assignment had been for. Thin excuses to shield the truth Luca ought to have seen all along.

As the journal wraps up, Luca finds his eyes burning with the effort not to cry. Armie explains this moment as one that he didn’t realize would impact him at all, but clearly had, and clearly would. He talks about wanting _more_ than he was given. About wanting to feel the way he felt in that library again, with that boy that made him believe it wasn’t all a waste to try to be happy.

He writes about how that moment will have an impact because he saw himself for the first time. Luca breathes deeply when he reads the final line, his hands shaking as he tries to absorb the enormity of this situation. Of what he’s been told, of the amount of trust that’s been placed in his hands.

_That moment will have an impact on my future because it showed me that I am not like my father, or my brother, because I am gay._

Armie can’t breathe when he walks into class on the Friday before break. Mr. Guadagnino told them he would read their journals yesterday so they could have feedback before going on Thanksgiving break, but he almost wishes his teacher hadn’t read it yet. Maybe, just maybe, his secret could be a secret still.

When he walks into class that morning, he sees Timmy sitting with Saoirse like he always does. For a brief moment, the boy looks up and smiles, Armie’s stomach turning as he averts his eyes and makes it to his desk quietly, the bell ringing as he sits. It takes one look to his teacher to know that his secret is in fact, no longer a secret. Mr. Guadagnino smiles at him before glancing around the rest of the class, and for all Armie’s concerned, he might as well announce it to everyone that Armie wrote a too-honest journal.

Mr. Guadagnino doesn’t pass back the journals at the start of class like he normally does, instead waits until the end so he can pass them out one by one. He gives another journal exercise for the break that Armie knows he’ll have to try at now that he’s shown he’s capable of it, but aside from that, class passes uneventfully. Not that Armie’s nerves would agree.

Mr. Guadagnino calls names out one at a time to grab journals on the way out, and Armie’s leg bounces under his desk as students file out. He knows his name will be called last.

Suddenly, his lungs tighten with the realization of what’s happening. Five students remain, now four, and Armie looks over to Timmy’s desk, still occupied. Timmy glances over as if sensing he’s being watched, and smiles shyly. Armie can’t breathe as he tucks his hair behind one of his ears.

"Timmy," Mr. Guadagnino calls, breaking the moment. "Great work with this, really interesting. I’ll see you in third period," he says. Timmy thanks him and leaves, waving at Armie as he goes.

"Armie," Mr. Guadagnino says, walking over to his desk as he sits frozen. "Thank you for this honesty. I know this must have been difficult for you. It is a beautiful journal."

"Yeah," Armie mutters, still uncertain of how to proceed after his teacher all but confirmed he knew exactly who it was about. "Thanks."

"I won’t tell anyone. This is your truth to tell, and I am very honored you decided to share it with me. I know you didn’t have to." Embarrassingly, Armie finds his eyes watering. "It will not always be easy for you. But I will always be on your side." Armie takes a deep breath and nods, wills the tears away, and moves to stand. With his backpack over his shoulder, he takes his journal and stuffs it into a pocket before zipping it up and leaving the classroom, not trusting his voice enough to say goodbye without breaking.

Technically, Luca told the students he would be doing this at the end of November. So it isn’t calculated. Technically.

Or at least, he tells himself as much as he pours his third glass of wine the night before break ends and pulls out a new seating chart to rearrange students in his first period English class. His husband (for a lack of a better term. What was he really? A partner in life? Confidant? All would work, he supposed) read in the corner of the living room, periodically glancing up to watch him struggle with the task. _Just do it,_ he said after a while. _What’s the worst that happens? You help two closeted kids who like each other spend time with each other?_

It isn’t that simple, Luca wants to tell him, but refrains. Because it _is_ that simple, and he knows it.

But how can he justify using what he’s been told in confidence to switch the seating around and play matchmaker? When they might not be ready to admit this to anyone but themselves and their teacher? Timmy would probably smile and thank Luca, but Armie? He wasn’t sure he could regain his trust when it was given so hesitantly. If only there was a way he could convey to Armie that it wasn’t one sided, that not only two weeks ago, Timmy had confessed to him after their Theater class that he had a crush on one of the boys in English. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. They just needed a push, an excuse to talk. That’s all.

Luca downs his glass of wine, shakes his head, and writes their names in two seats next to each other.

As Armie arrives at school on Monday, he can’t seem to remember the last time he was _this_ nervous to go to class. An entire week without seeing Timmy had done something to him; he hadn’t even realized how much he looked forward to seeing him in class and at lunch, in the hallways as they went to their lockers only a few yards away from each other. Writing about him made it worse, he’s sure. Now it’s out there, now someone else knows, and it made it more real. Every day that passed felt like a gross lump in his stomach that wouldn’t go away. But now, _now_ he knows he’ll get to see him. Even if it is only in passing.

He’s so consumed with the thought that it doesn’t occur to him that, now that Mr. Guadagnino _knows_, everything could change.

He walks into class a little earlier than normal, but that’s _totally_ accidental. Purely coincidence. Not that he’s eager. He stops a foot into the room, chest tight and heart racing, when he sees the projected seating chart on the whiteboard. Someone runs into him and he steps out of the way, eyes scanning the chart before he even realizes the body now at his side belongs to a curly mop of hair and bright green eyes. He’s momentarily distracted as Timmy mumbles, _"I forgot he was doing this._"

He turns towards Armie and smiles, adjusts his backpack. "We’re together."

"_What_?" Armie breathes out, eyes darting to the board when Timmy shrugs towards the desks, tilting his head for Armie to follow just as Armie finds his name next to none other than Timmy Chalamet. He looks over at Mr. Guadagnino who is doing a fine job of pretending not to watch, but Armie knows he’s waiting to gauge his reaction. Slowly, he walks towards his new desk, body numb, and sits down.

"This is kind of cool," Timmy says, pulling Armie’s focus. He looks over at him, heart still somersaulting in his chest. "I’ve wanted to talk to you all semester."

"What?"

"You say what a lot," Timmy smiles.

"I—um," Armie shakes his head and finds himself laughing as Timmy cracks a smirk. "I’m just having a really weird day," he settles, cheeks pink.

"Yeah?" Armie nods, finds it hard to stop looking at the boy next to him. "Hopefully not in a bad way?"

"I don’t think so, no."

"That’s good. Because then I’d have to cheer you up." Armie warms and tries desperately to stop the reaction, knows that one of his other friends could look over and see him blushing and call him out, embarrass him. But he tries to take deep breathes and realizes Timmy is _also_ blushing.

Finally, he looks over at Mr. Guadagnino, who’s smiling softly at the two of them, his shoulders lifting in a shrug when he’s caught watching.

Mr. Guadagnino calls class to order after the bell rings and Armie feels an unfamiliar buzz of energy to his right just knowing Timmy is a foot away from him. For a reading exercise, they’re told to turn to the person next to them to work in pairs, and Armie feels his hands shake when Timmy shuffles his chair closer to Armie’s desk so they can share books. He fumbles with the assignment, but only because he’s so distracted. Timmy, for what it’s worth, thrives. Armie notices how he soaks up the attention, never once making Armie feel awkward for looking or stumbling. It takes the entire class for Armie to realize what it is that he felt while Timmy looked over his shoulder and suggested answers for Armie to write on their worksheet— _safe_. He felt safe with Timmy at his side, felt safe to look at him for those brief moments they got to work together, safe to blush and smile and feel overwhelmed. And safe to hope that it would happen again, knowing full well that it was anything but a coincidence, them being seated next to each other.

"Guadagnino," he nods as he’s leaving the classroom, Timmy two steps ahead of him.

"I told you. I am always on your side," he says with a smile after Timmy’s left.

"Thanks," Armie breathes, smiling freely as he wanders into the crowded hallway with a hope he’s never known.

**Author's Note:**

> I know I said I was taking a break from this fandom, and truly I have been. It was nice to dip my toes back in with this quick little story today though, and I really like that I'm writing for me now. I love the support I get from all of you though, and really truly appreciate it. I've always wanted my space in this fandom to be a safe haven, and I don't want that to stop just because I'm not around as much. Hope you enjoyed this little fluff piece!


End file.
